Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1887-04-10
DRIES REFORM.
The Great Advance Made
Wompn's Wearing Apparel,

! The Great Advance Nj ade In
Women's Wearing Apparel.
NEW YORK, April 9.-"Do the dress re-
formers make any approaches TO the
BazsrW repeated Miss Mary L. Booth.
a few days before she left her saRctum at
Harpers for the trip abroad on which hhe
sailed yesterday. Certainly they make
approaches enough, but can't say they
have left any tangible impression. don't
see, indeed, what the dress reformer
wants." and the busy editor dropped
handful of papers and wheeled about to
face the quesJiOner.
'Can anybody point out a single de-
| partment of social economy In which
| greater advance has been made In the
past twenty-five years, or one in which
| common sense has come nearer to gain
! ing solid footing than in the dress OF
| women? Look at our boots, with their
thick soles and broad low heels, and COM
| pare them with the paper slippers of our
| grandmothers. Think of the low necks
and short sleeves which they displayed
in all weathers and at all hours OF the
| day, and which we have relegaJed to the
evening and to full dress occasions. How
much, by actual measure, do you sup
pose the average waist has expanded in
from thirteen or fourteen inch span,
| like Richardson's Pamela, whom her
lover could clasp with his two hands, to a
substantial girth OF twenty-four or twenty
| five inches.
Doesn't the dress reiormer know that
the fashion of to-day is that there isn't
| any fashion at aIi Individuality is the
| fashion. Whatever you choose to wear,
that within certain very elastic limits
q
mode as your neignbor. Fashion doesn't
call for anything that you don't choose to
put on. The more OF your own mind, your
own taste, your own whims, your own
caprice that you can put into your
clothes the more successfully dressed
you are. The one woman who above
all others is not in the prevailing
style is the woman who is enslaved to a
model.
''Does anybody suppose that fashion re-
quires cOrsets? Fashion doesn't care so
long as you have the art to make your
self acceptable TO the eye whether there
is single steel or the ghost OF whale
bone in your bodice. Is it fashion that
makes a sine qua non of the tOurnure!
Not bit of it. Press your draperies fiat
as you like. II women choose to jump
like flock OF sheep one after another
over a wall il is their own fancy in sthlet-
les. That is not fashion. Fashion at
present rather smiles on brains. For the
daylight toilet, at least, nobody need
make a martyr of herself with a single
article OF apparel that is not hygienic,
and the woman who suffers is bringing
the woes on herself, not obeying Mrs.
Grundy's will.
"fue standard age at which little New
Workers put on their stays Is years."
said a woman physician in busy practice
to whom l submitted Miss Booths view
of the irreDressible clothes question the
same afternoon. Call it Dame Fashion
or call il Dame Folly, the results are
much the same in the long run to me.
Ask any dry goods dealer and he will tell
you that he never sold corsets for babies
so young or women so old before. The
stay habit is spreading at both ends of
life, and directly or indirectly two thirds
OF my patients came to me through the
dressmakers thrall."
l asked Miss Bertha Won Hillern, as |
found her packing her trunks for sketch
ing tour In California, the other day,
what sort of apparel she found most con-
venient and practica BILE for an active
woman living an out of door life. For
answer she showed me her outfit for
some months Toughing it on foot; light
weight blue flannel garb with blouse
waist loosely belted, short skirt and drap-
cry sufficient to acknowledge a bowlng
acquaintance with the conventi0nalities.
Soft, loose shoes and wide felt hat COM
pleted a toilet that was on the face of it
comfortable and eminently suited to the
uses TO which it was to be put.